Design Conjecture 1
This first design conjecture was inspired by the movement of air in vertices, the puddle jumper toy itself, the Wright brothers’ background in bicycles, and a children’s ride at Chuck E. Cheese. This “ride” or piece of demonstrative equipment likens the gears/wheels of the bike to the movement of air in a convection cell creating changes in air pressure. As the vortices spin the bike raises up the large spinning puddle jumper. It is this way that a conventional puddle jumper achieves lift, quickly spinning causing a differential of pressure. There is room for change with this conjecture. Rather than a puddle jumper form there could be a structure that resembles flapping wings, moved by the gears in the vortices created by a wing’s form. The gears could be adapted to look like eyes in the heads of the Wright brothers. A sort of “I can see their gears turning in their heads” sort of metaphor.
Design Conjecture 2
The second conjecture here is a play on kids’ meal toys, a gaming console I recently discovered, and the vertices created during flight once again. This would be a handheld device that when cranking moves the fluid in the device causing the little bird inside to raise or fall depending on which way the pressure is moving. This shows both the lift generated and the motion of fluid. This one could use a different form of crank, I just thought the form of the playdate was interesting and a fun base. It could be a single thumb form of crank, a dial like an iPod. Maybe there’s a gamification element. for example, the convection cell slides left and right and the aim is to land the bird in its nest. using one dial to adjust convection cell position and the other to engage the cycle. Maybe the bird is swapped for a plane resembling that of an early Wright brothers’ design.
